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Call for Facebook to recognise three-way relationships

Thousands of people have called on Facebook to recognise those in three-way romantic relationships.

The social media giant includes a section on a user’s profile for them to declare their relationship status. Currently, there are choices for those who are single, engaged, married, in a civil union, a domestic partnership, an open relationship, divorced, separated, widowed, as well as an “it’s complicated” option. This means that people in ‘polyamorous’ relationships – which involve at least three people – have no means of recognition on the platform.

Activist Philly Cashion has started an online petition which called on Facebook to incorporate polyamory. It has since received more than 3,000 signatures from around the world. She explained that she is in a three-way relationship with a man and another woman. The current relationship status options means that the three “are constantly faced with the idea that one of us is an add-on”. This is not the case, she insisted, describing her relationship as “a Triad, a Throuple, a Triumvirate” in which all three parties were equally important.

The three cannot get married in the UK despite their desire to, the petition read, because “such things are illegal” but they want some sort of recognition. While their call for a simple change on Facebook “may seem silly to some people, but to me [the lack of recognition is] another way of being told our relationship isn’t real”.

In an online Q&A last year, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett said that although they did not have any official policies on polyamorous relationships, she would be “open to further conversation and consultation” on the idea of civil recognition for them.

Read Philly Cashion’s petition in full here.

The blog team at Stowe is a group of writers based across our family law offices who share their advice on the wellbeing and emotional aspects of divorce or separation from personal experience. As well as pieces from our family law solicitors, guest contributors also regularly contribute to share their knowledge.

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